Food Safety
What causes food born illness?
How do we control bacteria?
Things to remember.

What is food safety? Unfortunately some people confuse
food safety with cleanliness, or meat doneness. While both play a part in
food safety neither play a major roll.

What causes food born illness?

We must first understand what causes food born illness.
Primarily, food born illness is caused by bacteria and other
microorganisms.

So cooking food well will kill the bacteria and then the
food is safe, right? WRONG! While cooking food does kill the bacteria we
can also get sick from the toxins the bacteria created while they were
alive and cooking doesn’t help.

Cleaning the food surface areas frequently will prevent
the bacteria from growing, right? WRONG! Wiping surface areas frequently
may do more spreading of the bacteria than killing them.

The first thing we must understand is that live bacteria
can make us sick and the toxins that they leave behind can make us sick.

How do we control bacteria?

The fist thing we need to know is that bacteria does not
die in the refrigerator. Refrigeration only slows its growth and must be
below 40 degrees F. Heat, about 140 degrees F, does kill bacteria but does
not destroy the toxins. So, as a general rule you should toss any meat if
its surface temperature may have remained in the danger zone (between
40°F and 140°F) for more than two hours unless you have done something
the kill the bacteria.

Some other things that kill bacteria are drying,
chlorine or other disinfectant, salt, sunlight, sugar, and smoke. It is
important to understand these things because we would never be able to
make ham or beef jerky if we didn’t. It is also important to understand
that bacteria is generally a surface thing so while the outside surface of
the food may not be safe the inside may be. More importantly is the fact
that grinding meat such as hamburger or sausage will take a few bacteria
on the surface and spread them through the entire meat and give them more
surface area to grown. That is why ground meat should be handled very
carefully.

Things to remember.

The things to remember are that the danger zone for food
between 40°F and 140°F. Below 40°F bacteria grows slowly and food must
get above 140°F to kill it. Heat however does not remove the toxins which
bacteria leave behind if allowed to grow. Curing food with salt, sugar,
smoke or drying will also kill bacteria and brining is helpful in this
regard. Wiping counters with a damp cloth will help spread bacteria and
provide moisture for it to stay alive. If you don’t use a disinfectant
it is better to let the sun and drying kill it. Think in terms of killing
as many bacteria as soon as possible and not doing things that will help
spread it. We are all going to eat bacteria and enjoy it but too much can
make us sick.